The nuclear industry has been besieged for years.
The battles have raged on both local and national stages. Some of the industry’s
wounds have been self-inflicted, but others have been based on emotion
and fear and not scientific fact. This month, Wendell Weart, Norbert Rempe,
and Dennis Powers give an eyewitness account of a nuclear success story,
the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP), our nation’s — and the
world’s -- first deep geologic repository for long-lived radioactive waste.

The opening of the WIPP later this year will mark
the end of a long, convoluted search for a nuclear waste repository. Since
its beginnings in the 1950s, the nuclear program has been scrutinized intensely.
What scientists involved with these projects soon realized was that siting
a nuclear waste dump is not based on technical fact alone. Community conscience
and will are also critical elements. Fifteen years of serious searching
led the technical team to the northern Delaware Basin, east of Carlsbad,
New Mexico — a site that met both the technical and political requirements.
It took an additional 25 years of testing, development, and construction
to produce the WIPP.

As principal scientists with the project, Weart,
Rempe, and Powers have been active with the WIPP for more than 20 years.
Each has helped develop and test the technical specifications of the site.
And, each has witnessed the diplomacy required to inform local residents,
state legislators, and Congress of its operations. It is a fascinating
story with lessons for all of us.

Our second feature describes the remarkable new Sloan
Career Cornerstone Series, guided and supported by the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation. Recognizing that very little information is available about
industrial careers in science and engineering, the Sloan Foundation contacted
11 societies and organizations, representing nine scientific and engineering
fields. Each was asked to focus on the essential, real-world aspects of
their disciplines and to produce a videotape, CD-ROM, and a website. The
American Geological Institute was among the participants; this fall their
products, describing a variety of geoscience career options, are available
to students, career counselors, and other users. Sloan Program Director
Frank Mayadas writes that the goal of the Sloan series is to give the curious
student solid facts about what scientists and engineers really do in the
workplace.

Our third feature focuses on an important and very
interesting chapter in geoscience research and its effect on data organization.
Fred Stoss, biology sciences librarian at the State University of New York
in Buffalo, describes the events leading up to the 1957 International Geophysical
Year (IGY). The research conducted during the IGY showed remarkable cooperation
between agencies and nations. An enormous amount of scientific data was
generated during that year, and scientists had to develop a means to organize
it. What resulted was an extensive array of World Data Centers. Now, more
than 50 of these centers exist around the globe. They’ve grown in complexity
but maintain the cooperative spirit of that extraordinary year. The list
accompanying the article will provide a handy reference for you and your
colleagues.

And finally, a last word about our first word — this
month’s “Comment” focuses on a topic important to all of us: water. Access
to fresh water allows communities to develop. Knowledge of the behavior
of water allows these same communities to thrive. In areas of abundant
water, we tend to forget its importance. Combine that complacency with
limited local budgets and we are in the process of losing valuable information
on national water flow. Elmer Cleaves, state geologist of Maryland, writing
on behalf of the Association of American State Geologists, relates how
some local and state legislators are shutting down important stream-gaging
stations. Cleaves calls for federal support to continue these stations,
which provide valuable data about a resource so vital to all of us.